HOT TOPICS:

Vermont's Lake Champlain Islands are a thing of beauty -- and secrets

Susan MaasSpecial to the Pioneer Press

Posted:
11/02/2012 02:11:01 PM CDT

Updated:
11/02/2012 02:47:54 PM CDT

Campers enjoy the sunset views of Lake Champlain.

There are plenty of reasons to visit northwest Vermont: rich historical significance, superlative hiking, top-flight ice cream, abundant craft beer. But it was the "sixth great lake," and specifically, the plesiosaur some say inhabits it, that first lured us to the Lake Champlain Islands four years ago.

The trip was proposed by our older son, then a fourth-grader and budding cryptozoologist with a burning desire to find Champ, the "gigantic water serpent" first glimpsed by Nathan Mooney in 1883. Like Scotland's Loch Ness, Lake Champlain is long, deep, cold and teeming with fish, the perfect habitat for a reclusive 25-foot-long water monster, should he exist.

It's also home to some 80 islands, with 10 Vermont state parks among them. It was the lovely, laid-back Lake Champlain Islands, and a bluff-top lean-to campsite with a view of the Green Mountains across the water, that called us back to the area this summer.

Our "home base" was Grand Isle State Park on South Hero Island. At 14 miles long, it's the largest island in the lake. And the busiest, which is kind of like saying Burlington is the biggest city in Vermont. (It is, actually. But with a chill outdoorsy population of 42,000, it's relaxed as can be.)

The tourism bureau has dubbed this region "New England's West Coast," but as we sat around the campfire with my cousin and his family talking trash about each other's stone-skipping skills, sampling local beer and cheese, and watching the sun sink into the maple-and-cedar woods, northwest Vermont reminded me more than a little of Wisconsin.

Advertisement

And Lake Champlain's agricultural heritage is still evident in the islands' picturesque farms and orchards, including Allenholm Orchard on South Hero, Vermont's oldest working apple orchard. The island also hosts a summertime farmers' market on Wednesday afternoons.

Though we never did spy Champ on that 2008 trip, we enjoyed Grand Isle State Park so much that we stayed there again this time. It has a range of campsites, from tent/trailer sites and lean-to sites to one-room rustic cabins. With swimming, boating, volleyball, a playground and nature center, plus proximity to numerous historical sites, the park is an ideal beachhead for a family vacation, even if freshwater cryptids aren't your thing.

Still, you should probably have a camera at the ready if you decide to explore the islands by boat, canoe or kayak, probably the three most pleasant ways to take them in. All of the island parks offer boat access, and six offer canoe or kayak rentals. Just be careful: While it's not Lake Superior, the weather can be mercurial, with the lake going from glassy to turbulent in a heartbeat.

CENTURIES-OLD STORIES

The islands are suffused with history. North Hero and South Hero islands were named for Revolutionary patriot Ethan Allen and his brother Ira.

Grand Isle's Hyde Cabin, built in 1783, is
believed to be the oldest remaining log cabin in the U.S. The Grand Isle Historical Society offers inexpensive tours.

Ethan spent his last night on South Hero, visiting his cousin Ebenezer, before dying of a stroke.

Just a short jaunt from the park is the Hyde Log Cabin and Corners Schoolhouse, operated by the Grand Isle Historical Society. Built in 1783 by Jedediah Hyde Jr., who had fought in the Revolutionary War as a teenager, the cabin is believed to be the oldest remaining log cabin in the U.S. The adjacent schoolhouse was built in 1814. A docent is on-site during the summer months, and admission to both sites is $3 and free for ages 13 and younger.

Northwest of Grand Isle, about a half-hour's drive (many of the islands are linked by bridges and causeways), is Isle La Motte. It's the site of Fort St. Anne, established by the French in 1666. Since 1893, it has been home to St. Anne's shrine, which includes a small museum housing several artifacts excavated from the original fortress.

But you can travel much further back in history on Isle La Motte: It's also the site of the 480-million-year-old Chazy Fossil Reef, composed of layers of limestone and fossils of sea creatures, from coral to sponges and large snails called gastropods. Formed in the Southern Hemisphere, it was deposited at its present location by rotating tectonic plates. A visitor's center on the island's Goodsell Ridge Preserve tells the reef's ancient tale.

HIKING, BIKING: GREEN MOUNTAINS

While there isn't much hiking to speak of on the relatively flat islands, visitors are within an hour's drive on both sides of the lake of some stunning and strenuous treks.

A picturesque hour's drive from the Champlain Islands, the Stowe/Smuggler's Notch area of Vermont's Green Mountains is a hikers' and mountain bikers' paradise. (Photo courtesy Vermont Department of Tourism and Marketing)

So far, we've exclusively explored the Vermont side, specifically focusing on the area around Mount Mansfield, the colonial town of Stowe and Smuggler's Notch State Park.

Named for its former role as a hiding place for 19th-century British contraband during a U.S. embargo of English goods, a route for fugitive slaves and, later, a cache for Prohibition-era booze, Smuggler's Notch is a hiker's dream -- or nightmare, depending on what kind of shape one is in. The park and adjacent state forest offer steep, rocky, rugged trails, including the short but challenging and rewarding Sterling Pond trail. Its namesake and apex is a trout pond in the heavens.

For an easier stroll, try the lovely, scenic Bingham Falls trail. If you're a daredevil (and if it's dry, and you don't have kids with you), check out the harrowing Hell Brook Trail. On your way back to the islands, be sure to stop in tiny Jeffersonville at Route 108 and Highway 15. Its Brewster River Gorge and Grist Mill Covered Bridge are picture-book pretty.

BOUNTIFUL BEACHES

Back on the islands, much of our time revolved around the beach. Grand Isle State Park's shale beach is perfect for rock skipping and fine for an evening dip, but if you're looking to spread out in the sand, head to Sand Bar State Park in Milton or, better yet, to Alburg Dunes State Park, where the quiet south-facing beach is one of the longest on Lake Champlain.

Bring a picnic from the fantastic deli at Hero's Welcome, a general store stocked with groceries and Vermont-made gifts ranging from chocolate and maple syrup to Adirondack chairs. It's in the town of North Hero, just a 10-minute drive from Alburg Dunes.

On both trips, we did most of our eating at the campsite, though each time we planned one lunch on the open-air Church Street Marketplace in Burlington.

On the island, especially if it's raining and campfire cooking isn't an option, McKee's Island Pub and Pizza is definitely worth a visit; order a Long Trail Ale with your meat-laden Champ Monster pizza.

Sadly, that pizza is as close as we've gotten to Champ so far. We've yet to join the ranks of witnesses -- from the Abnaki Indian fisherman centuries ago who told of a large, horned serpent they called Tatoskok, to the angler who, in 2009, reported seeing a creature that "had to be 50 feet long" from a dock on the lake's New York side -- with firsthand experience of the elusive water monster.

Luckily, he's protected by the Vermont legislature, so if Champ is there, we may find him on a future visit.